Our work shows how humans, like ants, may assemble themselves into a 'super-organism' with rules governing the assembly, rules that we carry with us deep in our genes.

Nicholas Christakis has studied the effects of social networks on people's health— specifically, how ill health, disability, health behavior, health care, and death in one person can influence the same phenomena in others in a person’s social network. Christakis and colleagues found that a person’s chances of becoming obese increase by 57% if they have a friend who becomes obese; by 40% if they have a sibling who becomes obese; and by 37% if a spouse becomes obese.

So in effect, you become can become what your social network is.

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